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Chapter 16: There Is Only the One

I am the creator of the many Vedas, and it is I who teaches them. I have created Vedanta, the culmination of the Vedas, which are the Upanishads. All the Vedas speak of me. I am beyond birth and beyond death. Sin and virtue cannot touch me. I am without body, senses and intellect.

This sutra will seem a little strange to you, because the sage says:

I am the creator of the many Vedas, and it is I who teaches them. I have created Vedanta, the culmination of the Vedas, which are the Upanishads. All the Vedas speak of me.

Is this the sage talking about himself? Is he speaking of himself? Seen superficially, this sutra will seem strange, but if you look into it a little more deeply, it becomes very significant. First, try to understand a few fundamental things about this sutra.

The first point is that all that is, is God, the divine; so whether it is the speaker or the spoken of, whether it is the seer or the seen, whether it is the sculptor or the sculpture, if the existence is one, then the sculptor really is creating a statue of himself and the singer really is singing a song about himself. The creator of the Vedas is also the subject of the Vedas, because there is no way for them to be separate. If existence is one, then everything, all, is related with this One.

Thus, a very significant truth has been expressed in this seemingly strange sutra, and that is: whatsoever is here, I am all of it. Nothing is excluded. Your mind will find this difficult, because you would like to exclude much of what is happening here. You feel it would be better if certain things did not happen. There is much in life that any thinking person will feel life would be better without it. But you think this way only because you are not aware of the depths of life.

There is not a person who does not feel that the world would be a better place without bad people, that a world without evil would be a better place. But there is something which is very clear and also very logical - that a good man can exist only if there is a bad man, and there can be virtue only if there is sin. If there were no sickness, there would be no possibility for health to exist, and if there is no death, birth would be an impossibility.

If you understand the laws of life, there is a constant balance between dualities. You would like to cut one of the two out, but you are not aware that it would immediately destroy the whole balance of life.